Oren Fader is active as a performer of classical guitar repertoire, both traditional and contemporary. Reviewing his solo New York recital, Guitar Review magazine stated: "His scholarship, technique, and intelligent musicianship are plainly evident and the beauty of his tone is consistently compelling"
He has performed in London, Tokyo, Munich, Amsterdam, Montreal, Maui, Russia, Mexico, and throughout the United States. Concerto performances include the Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He has performed hundreds of concerts with a wide range of classical and new music groups, including the Met Chamber Ensemble (directed by James Levine), New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, New World Symphony, Absolute Ensemble, American Composers' Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Music from Japan, New Amsterdam Singers, New York Festival of Song, North Country Chamber Players, Poetica Musica, and Speculum Musicae. Festival performances include Aspen, Tanglewood, Bach Oregon Festival, Deer Valley Festival (Utah), and Morelia, Mexico.
Mr. Fader has recently been touring with the Mark Morris Dance Group, performing Lou Harrison's Serenade for Guitar as onstage accompaniment for a new solo dance work choreographed and danced by Mark Morris.
Mr. Fader is well known for his performance of contemporary music.
In a performance of Mario Davidovsk's Synchronisms #10 for guitar and electronic tape, The New York Times wrote: "Oren Fader gave the guitar part a polished, energetic performance that was precisely matched to the tape sounds."
And at a recent performance The New York Times called Mr. Fader's playing "Electrifying". The New York City Classical Guitar Society recently interviewed Oren Fader for their online magazine, Nylon Review.
As a member of the Award- winning new music ensembles Cygnus, Fireworks, Poetica Musica and Glass Farm, he has premiered over 75 solo and chamber works with guitar, including compositions by Babbitt, Wuorinen, Machover, Biscardi, Currier, Naito, Pollock, and others. This season Mr. Fader will premiere works by Wuorinen (a guitar duo, written for him and William Anderson), and Jonathan Dawe (a new opera, commissioned by the Cygnus Ensemble).
Mr. Fader can be heard on over 20 commercial recordings, in repertoire ranging from the 16th Century (Dowland) to late 20th (Carter). In addition to "Another's Fandango", recent releases include "First Flight": Ten premiere solo guitar pieces written for Mr. Fader. Other recent recording projects include a new recording of an arrangement of "The Rite of Spring" performed by the Fireworks ensemble, and new releases from Milton Babbitt, Chien-Yin Chen, Tim Janis, Elizabeth Hoffman, Sean Hickey, and Meyer Kupferman. Mr. Fader is active in commercial film as well, just having recorded the classical guitar parts for the film, "Everything Is Illuminated", directed by Liev Schreiber.
Mr. Fader received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Purchase and his Master of Music (Performance) degree from Florida State University. His major teachers include David Starobin and Bruce Holzman.
Since 1994 Mr. Fader has been on the guitar and chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music.
Album Notes
John Dowland (1563-1626)
1. Queen Elizabeth's Galliard
2. Melancholy Galliard
3. A Fancy
Though renowned in his day as a virtuoso of the lute, English composer John Dowland is best remembered as a composer of songs. Throughout his instrumental works, such as in the whimsical Fancy included here, the marks of a songwriter and accompanist are evident: simple textures consisting of harmonized melody and gracefully shaped phrases prevail. The strong, poised elegance of Dowland's melodic writing, however, often masks rather striking chromatic harmony, quite advanced and unusual for his time. This discordant quality is even more pronounced in the Galliard, a piece which epitomizes the mood the composer is best known for: melancholy.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, BWV 998
4. Prelude
5. Fugue
6. Allegro
Written in 1740, ten years before the master's death, the three pieces comprising BWV 998, are among only a few pieces written by Bach for the lute. The work was originally in the key of E Flat Major, a very unidiomatic key for both lute and modern guitar, causing scholars to question whether the work was indeed conceived for lute or for the lute-harpsichord (a short-lived keyboard instrument strung with gut and sounding much more like an actual lute than a harpsichord). Of particular interest in this work are the very long and sonorous prelude and the complex da capo fugue.
Dušan Bogdanović (b.1955)
Six Balkan Miniatures (for World Peace)
7. Jutarnje Kolo (Morning Dance)
8. Zalopojka (Lament)
9. Vranjanka
10. Makedonsko Kolo (Macedonian Dance)
11. Siroko (Wide Song)
12. Sitni Vez (Tiny-knit Dance)
Each composer represented on this diverse collection writes from a strongly personal connection to his own cultural heritage. Native Yugoslavian Dusan Bogdonovic is no exception. The composer's imaginative use of non-standard techniques, such as the percussive "golpe" (knocking on the guitar) heard in the Vranjanka movement and the expressive pitch-bending in the Siroko, vividly captures the sounds of the instruments and voices of village musicians. Like Bartok, Bogdonovic is able to utilize the complex odd-meter of folk dances, as well as their expressive microtonal and modal scalar figures while sounding completely natural in his late twentieth century classical idiom.
Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806-1856)
13. Elegie
Though remembered today mainly by guitarists, Johann Kaspar Mertz was considered one of the leading performer-composers of his day and won great acclaim throughout Europe during his short lifetime. The composer's soulful Elegie is a wonderful addition to the literature. Unpretentious and elegant, the piece is firmly planted in the mid-nineteenth century Viennese Romantic style, reminding the listener more of Mertz's contemporaries Schumann and Mendelssohn than of his guitarist-composer predecessors, such as Sor and Giuliani. Mertz's work forms a wonderful bridge between the late classical style of these masters and the late romanticism of composers such as de Falla and Rodrigo. Mertz's piece was not written for the modern six-string, as on this recording, but for a ten-string guitar, his instrument of choice.
John Anthony Lennon (b.1950)
14. Another's Fandango
Disenchanted with the glut of "new sounds" guitar pieces (those requiring the guitarist to turn his instrument into a virtual percussion orchestra), John Anthony Lennon embraces the traditional use of the guitar and its characteristic devices and sounds. The popular Spanish Fandango dance can be heard in the rhythms and textures, in which a syncopated melody winds its way through a flowing texture of arpeggios and pedal points. The only "effect" utilized by Lennon in the work is harmonics, which the composer weaves into the fabric of the work in a wonderfully evocative manner. The result is a very successful and satisfying blend of old and new. One feels the aura of the Fandango and senses its history without being confronted with it directly: the hazy Spanish heat is palpable, but as if perceived through a dream or memory, or as experienced from an outside perspective by "another."
Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)
Tres Piezas Españolas
15. Fandango
16. Passacaglia
17. Zapateado
Though a violinist and pianist by training, Rodrigo is known primarily for his wonderful and evocative works for the favorite Spanish instrument, the guitar, especially the popular Concerto de Aranjuez. In Tres Piezas Españolas, the composer shows his extraordinary ability to blend the history, tradition, and sounds that gave birth to the popular dance forms with his distinctive modern voice. His work enriches twentieth century music with a thoroughly Spanish style and preserves and glorifies the folk forms by presenting them to a concert hall audience. Both the forms (Fandango and Zapateado) and many of the techniques and gestures of the virtuoso Spanish guitar style are evident, but it is the composer's highly personal sense of harmony (particularly in the luminous Passacaglia) that stamps the work as distinctly his own.
This CD is dedicated to my parents, Laurance and Yael Fader.
Special thanks to my teachers: David Starobin, Bruce Holzman, and Jeff Israel.
Additional thanks to Adam Abeshouse, Bill Anderson, Bradley Colten, Brian Coughlin, The Fader Family, Kevin Gallagher, Diana Halperin, Todd Harris, Thomas Humphrey, Marco Oppedisano, Paul Sobel, Martin Sola, and Josh Taylor.
Produced and Engineered by Adam Abeshouse
Edited by Silas Brown and Adam Abeshouse
Mastered by Adam Abeshouse
Recorded January 14-16, 2002
Guitar: 1986 Thomas Humphrey Millennium
Artist photo by Nick Granito
Program notes by Brian Coughlin
CD design by Bettina Utz at Baby Blue
www.orenfader.com
© 2003 Oren Fader
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